Special Friends
by LongTrail
Summary: Friends with Benefits in secret. They could pull that off, right?
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Set at a fictional time in mid-Season 1 where Schmidt is with Cece, Winston's with Shelby, but Julia and Russell just don't exist. My story, my rules. **

"This is lame!" Jess shouted. And she kicked her feet against the arm of the couch in protest. Nick looked over at her from his position on the opposing couch. He sighed, and put down the magazine that he had been reading.

"What's lame?" he said.

"It's Friday night!" Jess exclaimed, sitting up on the couch. "We should be doing something!"

"What do you want to do?"

"I don't know," she said. "But I'm bored and I'm going stir crazy just sitting in the apartment. God, where's Schmidt when you need a crazy idea?"

"With Cece," Nick said flatly. Schmidt was always with Cece now.

"And … Winston's with Shelby?" Jess ventured.

"That would be correct," Nick said. Winston was always with Shelby now. Always. Nick had a hard time blaming either of them for their absence. He could see the change in their behavior. The way they talked, the things they did. Last week, Winston bought Greek yoghurt to "keep it healthy, man." Schmidt cancelled his subscription to _CEO"s Naughtiest_ because who needed erotic corporate ventures when you experienced M-Rated Bollywood freelance on a nightly basis? They had carved space out of their lives for Cece and Shelby. They were in love. That was what people in love did. They were together all the time.

It also meant that he and Jess were alone a lot of the time.

"This sucks!" Jess said. "It's like we never go out anymore."

"Do you want to go out?" Nick said.

"Kind of," Jess said uncertainly. She shrugged her shoulders. "Maybe we could go to the bar?"

"On a busy Friday night," Nick said, "I'm kind of worried that they would make me work."

"Right," Jess said. And she had that disappointed look in her eyes that made them big and downcast. Nick didn't know why, but everything in him just hated that expression. It didn't look good on Jess. Disappointment should be for other people.

"But I have an idea," Nick said, getting up from the couch. "Don't move. Give me a moment."

* * *

"I thought you didn't want to bartend tonight," Jess giggled. They were sitting on the floor in the living room with the coffee table between them. On the table Nick had eleven shot glasses aligned in two rows – five facing Jess and six facing Nick. It was midnight and the sky outside was very black. They had only the living room lamp on, per Schmidt's newly-developed Reduce-the-Electricity-Bill plan. The room was an orange glow.

"I said I didn't want to _work _tonight," Nick corrected. "But this – this isn't work."

"And what is this exactly?" Jess said looking at the shot glasses. Each was filled with a differently coloured liquid.

"These are shots," Nick said. "A creative and girly assembly that I made just for you."

"Colour me flattered."

"They're all tequila-based," he said. "I don't want to mix liquors and get you sick."

"Why do you have six and I only have five?"

"Because I'm a man, Jess."

"I see," she said.

"And you're … _petite_," he said. Jess smiled slightly. An ironic twitch in the corner of her mouth. But she was petite, wasn't she? Nick thought. It was amazing how small Jess was. How tiny her waist was, and how thin her legs were.

"So what are they?" Jess said. She picked up the pink one. "This looks cute."

"That's a Thorny Mexican," Nick said.

Jess looked at him blankly.

Nick laughed. "I have no idea why it's called that, to be clear. It's tequila and strawberry cream. The green one is Sublime, which is lime jello and tequila. The orange one is John's Bomb, which is orange and cinnamon. The yellow one is Midwest Stop Light – sour apple and cinnamon. And the last one is. Well, it's kind of inappropriately titled. It's called Festive Fuck, and it's butterscotch, melon and grenadine."

"And your sixth manly shot?" Jess said. "Raging Bull? Man of Steel? Iron Will?"

"No Regrets," Nick said. He laughed as she did. He felt something warm curl in his stomach.

"It has Bailey's in it," he said.

Jess smiled. "When I think of an alcoholic powerhouse, I think of cream-based liqueur."

"You shouldn't mock me, Jess," Nick said very seriously. "Never mock the man that's going to get you drunk."

"There's no point in playing a Truth or Dare drinking game," Jess said. "I know everything about you. It would be boring."

"You know everything about me? Really?"

"Or I could guess," Jess said. She folded her legs in front of her and gave him a lazy arrogant smile. "You're very predictable, Miller."

"Am I?"

"You are."

"And what do you think you are?" Nick asked with a grin. "A surprise at every corner? A _Lost _season finale?"

"I'm not as predictable."

"Okay," Nick said. "How about this. You ask me questions. I'll ask you questions. For every answer that you or I get wrong, take a shot."

Jess looked at him with flashing blue eyes. And she smiled. A deep red-lipped smile. Nick felt his nerves tingle reflexively.

"I'm going to get you drunk, Miller," she said.

"Not before I get you drunk, Day."

* * *

"What was my first job?" Nick asked.

Jess was leaning against the foot of the couch with her legs stretched out in front of her. She wore a blue skirt and her legs were bare. Her feet were right next to his hands on the floor. He resisted tickling them. Although why he wanted to tickle Jess's feet was somewhat of a mystery. Nick moved his eyes from her legs to her face.

Jess looked exasperated at him. "Nick, there are like a million possibilities for what your first job could be. How am I supposed to know that?"

"I thought I was just _so _predictable."

"But still!"

"Okay, you can just guess a broad category if you want," he said. She looked up at him smiling. He shrugged amicably. "I'll give it to you if you're close."

"Hm," Jess said. She leaned back and looked at him. Really looked at him. Like the answer was written in his eyes. She has _totally_ great eyes. "You worked in the food industry … I'm seeing a really colorful apron and ice cream scooper in your past."

Nick laughed.

"Wrong," he said.

"Okay. Then what were you?"

"I was a dog walker," he said. He looked at her seriously. "I walked the dogs of the ladies in the neighbourhood who were too old to take their dogs on long walks."

"You didn't."

"I really did."

"You walked old ladies' dogs."

"Poodles, mostly. And the tiny little yappy dogs that you can do weird things with their hair."

"Oh my god."

Jess was laughing, hard. And Nick felt contentment rush into him.

"You should drink that strawberry shot," he said, putting it in front of her. "And remember that it represents how much of a mystery I still am."

* * *

The alcohol had set in. Nick could feel it humming in his brain, forming hazy clouds over his eyes that made Jess's face look perfect and the summer air feel amazingly warm. Invincibly perfect. She was saying something, and he was laughing. Her hand touched his arm. His body tingled. The orange glow from the lamp washed all around the room and Nick sighed in a deep happiness. Hanging out with just Jess was great. Maybe it was okay that Winston and Schmidt were gone so much. Jess was a great friend.

"Okay, I've thought of a question," Jess said. She leaned forward, her hair spilling over her bare shoulders. When had she taken her sweater off? Nick suddenly noticed her naked arms. Her tank top looked soft. He resisted the urge to feel the hem with his fingers.

"What is it?" he said.

They sat on the floor of the living room directly in front of each other. Their knees were almost touching. The shot glasses were on the coffee table next to them. Like they were staring each other down. Like it was some weird kind of duel.

"What age did I lose my virginity?" she said, smiling.

The room felt warm, Nick thought. He looked at her. At the dark thick bangs, and the hair that hung everywhere around her. And her creamy skin that looked orange in the light, and the big blue eyes and her tiny waist and her thin bare legs. Jess was beautiful, wasn't she? His brain was garbled. And nothing was making sense. Jess was cute. But she was beautiful, wasn't she? When had she started having sex?

"Uhh," he said. Jess was smiling. Her smile was all around him. In his eyes. In his brain.

"I'm, uh, going to going with the national statistical average," Nick said slowly, "and guess 16."

"Wrong," Jess said. "Drink up. Shot five."

"Well, when did you start then?" he asked. Nick felt curiosity prick him, like a million dull points on the back of his neck. That were goosebumps. He took the fifth shot in his hand. And he looked back at the table. Jess had one shot left, meaning that she was four in. He was about to be five. She would win, he realized. Even though he still had the sixth. It had to be first to five.

Jess looked over at the table, with the same understanding dawning upon her face. That beautiful face. She smirked at him. "Looks like I know you a little better than you know me, Miller."

"When did you lose your virginity?"

"I don't know if I want to tell you."

"I'm not going to drink this, and you're not going to win, until you tell me," he said. His voice sounded deep to him. In his brain. In his foggy clouded brain. He felt suddenly apprehensive, for no reason.

"Why do you want to know?"

"You asked," he said. He held the shot glass in his hand. He stirred it agitatedly in his fingers. What was wrong with him? He looked at her and she was looking back at him. With big blue eyes. And a smile that seemed to him like she thought he was endearing. Something in his stomach constricted, pleasantly. Warmly.

"I lost my virginity at 22," she said.

"Really?"

He sounded shocked. How had she fended men off that body for so long?

"Yes, really," she said, a little bit agitated. He felt suddenly bad. "Things just didn't work out with guys in college and I wanted things a certain way and … Well the stars just didn't align. So it took a while."

"But the stars did align eventually?" he said. Why did he care? Would he ask Winston this? Not that he needed to. "Was it what you wanted it to be?"

Jess seemed to consider his question carefully. She looked to the corner of the room. Thoughtful.

"It wasn't," she said slowly. "But it was good."

What was this feeling? He thought. What was this hot agitated feeling moving through his limbs? Hitting his chest hard. Jealousy made no sense. He didn't even know Jess at 22. He certainly didn't care if sex was good for her.

Nick downed the shot. And slammed the shot glass against the table.

* * *

"I think I see Orion's Belt," she said.

"Jess, you're looking at the ceiling."

Nick and Jess lay with their backs flat against the living room floor, staring up at the white plastered ceiling. It was popcorn textured – studded with protruding white dots. Like a huge plaster canvas.

"I can definitely see The Big Dipper," she said.

Nick laughed. Their arms touched. He tried not to notice.

The silence set in, thick and warm. But it wasn't comfortable, he thought. Nick felt the air gnawing and tugging at his skin. Say something, he thought. But what was he supposed to say? What did he want to say? His mind was fuzzy, and he was _confused. _He kept his arm rigidly at his side. His fingers felt tingly.

"Hey, Nick," Jess said. Nick turned his face from the ceiling, towards her. She was looking at him.

"Thanks for hanging out with me tonight," she said. And she smiled at him.

He smiled back.

"My pleasure, Jess," he said.

Her eyes. Blue. Lips pink. Smiling at him. And it rushed into him, quickly, suddenly, violently. He understood. _This is attraction_, his brain clarified. Finally. He was _attracted _to her. Jess was _attractive. _

His throat constricted. He felt hot.

"Jess, can I ask you something?" he said, slowly. Looking at her. Who was this creature in front of him? He wanted to touch his lips to her skin. That was crazy, wasn't it.

"Yes," she whispered. From the floor, next to him. Her entire body turned towards him. Feet pointing at him.

_Keep your eyes on her face. _

"Are you happy?" he asked. "Right now? Are you happy?"

There was silence. She looked at him, very thoughtfully. There was no expression on her face. At first. A blank porcelain slate.

She nodded. And a smile came onto her lips.

"I am," she said softly.

"What was your hesitation?" Nick said quickly. Body and mind buzzing. Looking into her face intently. Every micro-expression. Every breath.

Jess laughed, and looked around awkwardly. "It's not a big deal, really."

"What?" Nick said. "Come on."

"It's embarrassing."

"Please tell me."

She sighed, and smiled. Rolled her eyes in a pink embarrassment that invaded her cheeks. "Well it's just … I am happy. I love my life right now. I love living here with you guys and I love teaching. And I don't even really feel like I want to be in a relationship right now. I'm okay taking a break. But …"

"But," Nick said.

But. What a funny word.

"But it's been … a while …" she said. Meaningfully.

He looked at her. At the big eyes. Long eyelashes. Did she really mean?

"It's been months," she said softly. Jess shrugged her shoulders. "And that's really my only problem. Which is not even a problem, really. It's more like an annoyance. It's not a big deal."

Nick just looked at her in wonderment. How is it possible that _that _could be a problem for _her_?

Jess's cheeks grew pink.

"I over-shared, didn't I?" she said. "I feel like I'm always doing that with you."

"No," Nick said quickly. "No, you didn't. I mean, it's been a while for me too. I bet it's been even longer."

Really? Had he really just said that?

Jess laughed. And he felt relieved. She shook her head. Adorably.

"It's like we're the last two single people left on the planet," Jess chuckled.

"Well, then you know what we should do," he said.

Jess stopped laughing. She stared at him. Blinked. With great big eyes.

And his brain instantly melted. _Had he really just said that? _Everything in his body seized, in shock and horror. Everything at once. _What was wrong with him? _He opened his mouth to say something. Anything. He was joking. It was just a joke.

"We should take the last shot," Jess said quietly. She sounded serious, suddenly. There was a look in her eye that Nick did not recognize.

He felt on fire.

"Okay," he whispered.

And she sat up from the floor. He followed her. They took the shot glasses into their hands. And sat directly in front of each other. Staring into each other. Why was this room so goddamn hot? And dark?

"Cheers," Jess said. She knocked her glass into his.

"Cheers," he said.

And they swallowed the last shot. No Regrets. Nick felt it burn down his throat. He put the glass down on the table and looked at Jess, who had her eyes closed and her lips pursed. She shook her head and put her glass down on the table. She smiled at him.

"I love tequila," she said. He was looking at her. And her bare arms.

"Tequila makes me take my clothes off," she said.

A thousand deaths. He felt a thousand heart attacks pummel his chest. The unbearable heat of a scorching hell summer flood over his body as the door to the apartment opened and Cece and Schmidt came in. He moved his eyes for a fraction of a second from Jess's face. She was staring directly at him. Serious. Hot.

Cece giggled somewhere behind him.

"Wow," Schmidt said, walking over to the couch. He looked at the scattered shot glasses. "It looks like you guys robbed a minibar."

"It definitely smells like you guys robbed a minibar," said Cece.

Jess laughed. And it sounded wrong, awkward. Cece gave her a look. Jess cast her eyes to the ground.

_What is going on? _Nick's brain fired a million answers simultaneously.

"I just want to thank you two for abiding by the Electricity Reduction Plan," Schmidt was saying to them. Nick's wasn't really listening. Jess was not making eye contact. Why wasn't she looking at him? What had she just said? What had she meant? _What had she meant? _

"I actually think I like the unitary lamp lighting better," Schmidt said. "I'm really feeling it. Don't you think it makes the place look cosy? Like a candlelit chamber of the Taj Mahal?"

"Let's go to bed, Schmidt," Cece said.

"I'm going to go to bed as well," Jess announced. And she stood up from the floor quickly. Wobbly. Nick immediately put his hand on her leg, to steady her. She looked at him in surprise. His hand burned.

"Do you need help getting to bed?" Cece said. She was looking at them. Like she knew. _But what was there to know? What was happening? _

"No," Jess said softly.

Nick removed his hand. And he got up off the floor.

"We'll clean this up in the morning," he said to no one in particular. The scattered array of shot glasses on the coffee table.

"Well, goodnight, guys," Schmidt said.

"Goodnight," Nick and Jess said simultaneously. They looked at each other. And then away.

Nick heard Schmidt close the door to his bedroom. And he released a breath that he didn't know he had been holding. He looked down at Jess. She was staring at him with the biggest eyes in the whole world. He couldn't look away. _This is happening_, his brain said. _Shh, _Nick responded.

They walked down the hallway to their bedrooms. To their opposing doors. And stood there. And looked at each other. Slowly.

"Goodnight, Miller," she said quietly.

His heart hammered to a roar.

"Goodnight, Day," he said.

Then Jess turned. She opened her bedroom door. It closed. Nick stood in the hall. Staring. At her bedroom. In silence.

_Well,_ said his brain. _This is new. _

**A/N: This is my first fanfiction. Please review! **


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Thanks for all the positive feedback!**

Jess woke up with a headache, a dead phone, and a deep sense of regret.

She rolled out of bed, took two steps, and reconsidered. She gingerly laid down on the bare floorboards, next to the mound of clothes that occupied the floorspace near her bed. The floor was cold. _Tequila makes me take my clothes off_. Great. That was really great.

She was going to stay in her room and never come out.

In some parts of the world, students were taught over Skype, right? Like girls in Saudi Arabia.

She could hear movement outside her room, in the hallway and the kitchen. It was probably Nick. All the movements, all the voices, were probably Nick. Why had she attempted the sultry approach? Jess did not do sultry. Cool and sexy were admirable aspirational traits that maybe in a decade she could trade her quirky and lovable chips in for. Until then, she was going to pray that the polka dotted peep show worked for the men in her life.

_Why did she even want to seduce Nick?_ Well, he was hot. In a really rugged barebones sort of way. And it had been a really long time. _A really long time. _

"Uggh!" She slammed the floorboards with her fists and wailed.

Schmidt popped his head through the doorway. "Jess, why are you lying on the floor?"

"Because!"

"That doesn't even look clean." Schmidt prodded her with the tip of his toe. She stirred. Part of her laundry fell onto his shoe. Schmidt retracted. "That's definitely not clean."

"Where's Nick?" she mumbled.

"Nick left," Schmidt said.

"He did?"

"He went running."

Jess looked up at him. "But Nick doesn't run."

Schmidt shrugged. "I like to think of it as entertainment for the whole neighbourhood."

"Oh god."

"What's wrong with you anyway?" Schmidt asked. He sat down on the floor next to her, although not touching the clothing.

Jess lay next to him, torso half-covered in pairs of unwashed tights and sweaters. Looked up at Schmidt with big sad blue eyes. "I just can't be cool and sexy, Schmidt."

Schmidt laughed. "Jess, that's crazy."

"No, it's not," she said, sitting up. "Sex is so much work, Schmidt. I always have to try so hard. I just want to wake up one day and be smooth and attractive and have men gravitate towards me while I bat my eyes mysteriously like Sophia Loren. And it's never going to happen."

"That's the thing, Jess," Schmidt said. "It will happen if you want it to. Look, you know what I always say – there are two types of women in this world. There are planets and there are stars. Planets are people like Nick or Winston, who orbit in celestial nothingness hoping that one day they will get noticed because their gravitational centerfield strikes a lady's fancy. But you and Cece, you're stars. You've got your pick any day of the week."

Jess looked at him. "I don't feel like a star, Schmidt."

"That's because you have to act like a star to be a star," Schmidt said. "You just have to let go. Let it happen because it's going to. Feeling sexy is half the battle of being sexy. Take it from someone who has studied the art of being sexy like it was twelfth grade calculus."

"Really?" Jess said hopefully

"Yup," Schmidt said, getting up. He walked to her doorway, and then turned around. "And pro-tip, it never hurts to wear unforgettable lipstick."

* * *

Jess was sitting on the sofa staring aimlessly at the television when she heard the turn of the doorknob. She felt something quicken in her chest; rap on her pulse. And she suppressed it. _Sophia Loren_ she thought in her head. _You are a star. _

The door opened and he came through it.

And her brain stopped working.

He was wearing a pink t-shirt – the soft thin kind, which meant that you could see his sweat soaking through the fabric. Which wasn't sexy on some people. But on Nick it _really _was. The tanned thick arms. His legs were imposing and muscular. The sun had browned his skin, like coffee with two creams.

Nick ran his hand through his hair, which made it sweatily stick up in all directions. _Hot. _And then he looked at her. Really looked at her.

"Hey, Jess," he said. His voice was _deep_.

"Hi, Nick," she said.

He walked towards her, almost uncertainly. He didn't break eye contact. He reached the couch.

"Mind if I sit here?" he asked.

"Sure," Jess said, and she moved her feet so that he could sit down. Her legs felt warm. Because his body was warm, because he had been running, and sweating. He sat next to her. He looked at her. In that way that made her spine curl. _Nick. _

"Your lips look great," he said.

She felt blood rush to her face.

"Thanks," she said. "It's new. The lipstick, I mean. Not my lips. These old things."

He smiled at her. Like he could tell she was nervous.

_Sophia Loren. _Jess straightened herself.

"So, how was your run?" she asked.

"You know, I've got to be honest," Nick said. "I'm not a runner. I don't look good when I run. I kind of looked like Julie Andrews in the opening scene of the Sound of Music, swinging my trunks down the sidewalk, only my arms were the trunks."

Jess laughed. "Whoa there, world. Road Danger. Nick Miller."

"More of a Pedestrian Danger, really."

"Sounds like you belong on the registry." Nick stared at her. Jess put her fingers nervously in her hair. "I just took that to a really weird place."

"It's okay," Nick said softly. He looked at her. With really dark eyes. His skin must feel so nice. She wanted to run her hands along his jaw and feel the stubble. Because it would feel scratchy. Not because of anything else.

"Last night was fun," he said.

"It was."

"We should do that again," he said.

She felt her breath catch somewhere. In her throat. She looked at him. His eyes looked meaningfully back at her. And she smiled, this time without nervousness.

"Yeah, we should," she said.

"I have to work at the bar tonight," Nick said. "But maybe next weekend, when you're free to hang out, or something?"

_Next weekend was so far away. _

"Yeah," she said. She looked down at her lap. He smiled. He touched her shoulder. Her whole body felt warm.

"I'm going to shower," he said. "If Schmidt sees me sweating on the couch he's going to insist on having it drycleaned."

Jess laughed. "Okay."

* * *

It was midnight. Late night. Deep night. It was a dark night. Jess stood in her bedroom, looking at herself in the mirror on the wall. She was alone in the apartment. Schmidt was at Cece's. Winston was with Shelby. As always. Nick was at work.

She had put the dimmer switch in her bedroom on low, and imagined that it would look like the lighting in the bar. Vague and sultry. Her dress was black lace. Because that was kind of sexy, but also not planet-y. And her lipstick was really red. It made her want to eat her own mouth.

Jess made eye contact with herself in the mirror.

"You can do this," she said. And, turning around to make sure nobody was watching, she looked back at the mirror. And then stood up really tall, with her arms above her head, like a striking bear pose. And growled. Loudly. Because that was what you were supposed to do before an interview, to make yourself feel more imposing and more powerful. That was how you rocked an interview. And wasn't this kind of an interview?

Jess left the apartment and entered the bar where Nick was pouring a drink at the counter. He smiled at her when she made her way over to the counter. She sat down on one of the stools and he leaned over to her. Whispered in her ear.

"You got lonely up in the apartment?" he asked.

"Actually I came here to keep you company," Jess said. "All work and no play makes a dull shift."

"Well, I appreciate it," Nick smiled. "Always."

He turned around to get a glass when Jess put out her arm to stop him. He turned around. She looked at him.

"I actually wanted to talk to you about something," she said.

"Okay," Nick said.

Jess sat back in her seat. The bar stool made her feel tall.

"I think we should do it," she said.

"What?"

"I think we should sleep together and not tell anyone," Jess said. She felt Nick's eyes burning holes in her skull. "I think that our friendship is mature enough to sustain a little NC-18 nudity. And given that we both seem to currently suffer from the same problem, I think this is an easy solution. We don't have to … do it … all the time. But if there's an itch that we don't want to scratch ourselves… I think we should do this."

Nick was staring at her. Hard. Like he was trying to restrain himself. His eyes were dark. And suddenly, Jess felt panic. Coursings through her. Like her limbs were on fire. _What had she done? Why had she asked him that? _This was Nick. _Nick. _She had just propositioned her roommate at the bar where he worked and he was looking at her like that. With the eyes. With big black circles and he was biting his lip. Like he wanted to bite hers.

"You're not worried that it will become complicated?" he asked. His voice was raspy.

_Was he agreeing to this?_

"I think we can handle it," she said.

Everything was on fire. Jess felt dizzy. Nick stood behind the bar, with his hands on the wood. His fingers a foot from hers. He looked at the bar. And then her. And she could hear voices calling to him to order drinks. He looked at them. He looked back at her. At her eyes. Then her hair. And her lips. He looked twice at her lips.

"I'm in," he said.

Her legs were shaking on the bar stool because her heart could not handle this. She felt excitement pounding through her chest, coiling in her stomach. Between her legs.

"Great," she said.

He stared at her. With black eyes. That were dark under the light. The low lighting of the bar. Suddenly, flickering before her mind – a series of still motion pictures of her and Nick and their bodies and no clothes and whispers and thick hot air and her mattress and the dark. Nick.

She slid off the bar, smoothly, like she imagined Sophia Loren would.

"I'll see you back at the loft," she said.

"Yeah," Nick whispered. "See you, Jess."

Jess left the bar feeling as though she was on the fire. Just like the sun.

**A/N: I'll try to get another update out soon. Please leave a review! **


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Hi guys. I'm sorry it's taken a while to get this chapter out. I have a crazy full-time work schedule so the only time I get the chance to write is on the weekends. Hope you enjoy it! **

They probably would have done it that night.

If she had stayed awake.

Jess had meant to wait for him on the couch in the living room that night. She returned to the apartment feeling electrified and alive. _I think we should sleep together and not tell anyone. _She paced the floorboards between the couches. Back and forth. She was going to do it. She was going to sleep with Nick Miller.

Jess stopped walking. And sat down on the couch. She stared at the door. One leg crossed over the other. And then uncrossed. Then cross again.

Her whole body couldn't stop shaking. With anticipation. She was going to do it.

It was unbelievable, really. Everything in the loft felt bigger and heavier than it was suddenly. Like her eyes were binoculars and the world was a _massive _place. Everything around her was just so freaking big. _Nick Miller_. Holy shit.

And the first thought that came to her head was that she just _had _to tell Cece. This was the biggest thing that had happened to her today, or lately, or ever, really. This was crazy. Jess felt the secret burning in the center of her chest; spreading outwards to her fingertips. Buzzing through her hands with a _hiss_. She felt shaky. And weird. Her whole spine was curling in.

Jess pulled out her cellphone.

And threw it down on the table.

It hit the wood with a _bang! _

Jess couldn't tell Cece. The one thing that she couldn't do was tell Cece. This was her secret. Hers and Nick's secret. The biggest secret in the whole world was hers. And the immensity of it, thick and colossal, was burning her chest. She just couldn't believe it. Nick Miller. What was happening?

Jess leaned back into the couch, lying flat against its cushions. And closed her eyes. Waited. For the room to cease spinning. She put her arms across each other. And took a really deep breath. Waited. For the walls to stop growing. For everything to calm. Down. She felt her mind drain into clarity. The world stilled.

Jess leaned over from her supine position. Looked at the door. Breathed. And smiled, with her beautiful crimson mouth. She just had to stay awake for two more hours. And then he would come home. To her. Into her bedroom. For the night.

_Nick Miller. _Oh, God.

* * *

They probably would have done it that night.

If he had come home earlier.

Nick couldn't get away from the bar. From the customers that poured into the bar at every increment in the night. From the infinite number of dishes that he had to hand-wash because the dishwasher at the bar had broken earlier that night. From the shards of glass that three customers broke in a sporadic brawl whose denouement was an ambulance and an incident reported that Nick had to file that night. Everything in the world was happening _that night_.

Nick couldn't get a break.

He couldn't get her out of his head.

_He couldn't get her out of his head._

It made him want to scream. And throw something. And shove her up against the bar and kiss her and die.

The moment that Jess had left – that he had watched her turn her back. And leave, in a dress black as dead night, that seemed not Jess at all. Had it been Jess? Could that really have been Jess saying those sinful words? Those dark, amazing words. As he stood there, open-mouthed, pint glass dripping with the foam of an ill-poured beer. Was that his Jess saying those things to him?

He was hard all night. His whole body was hard all night. If that was possible. Surely, Schmidt thought it was. And it _was_. For Nick. Right now. His whole body was taut with anticipation.

They didn't need to be the last two single people on Earth. Or the last two people on Earth. Or anything. Tonight they would just be – Nick couldn't process. Or think. He passed glass to glass to customer after customer. Couldn't meet their eyes. Register. That there was any other human being. They had to be the last ones on Earth if they were going to. Do this. They were going to do this. Him and Jess.

Nick saw it flickering through his head like an erotic ineluctable tickertape. The pictures. Of them together. Of them with each other.

He saw his hands removing her bra. Parting her thighs. Her white. Legs. The noises in her throat. Oh God, her throat. Nick shuddered. He wanted to suck on her throat until it bore his signature in red.

He wanted to make every second in the world of this night count.

And then Nick reached the loft. He opened the door; gripped it. Entered the apartment.

And there she was. Jess was laying there, on the couch. Asleep, serenely. Waiting for him. The thought made Nick smile and sigh simultaneously. The television was still on – The Food Network. A Jess channel. She had enforced Schmidt's one-lamp rule. The loft was bathed in dim orange. Jess was bathed in dim orange.

Nick felt his whole body grow still, and relaxed. The angry, pent-up, hot-ended nerves were fixed in place; he couldn't get rid of them. He knew. Not without. Jess. But the nervousness beneath it, that had coursed through him at the bar, that had overwhelmed him at the doorway, was suddenly quelled. And there was succor somewhat in being guaranteed a moment of peace to think about what it is that he and Jess would be doing without his body ragingly propelling him forward. Into hers.

Nick leaned over the brown leather couch. He took a moment to really look at her. At her face. Her skin was _so _white, he thought. Her face was like a really complicated piece of artwork – juxtaposition in the hues of her eyes and her lips, and the pallid shade of her skin.

He lifted her from the couch like she weighed nothing.

He carried her through the living room, and down the hallway. Jess stirred in his arms as he carried her. Squirmed, just a little. He looked down at her. Her eyes were blinking, flickering, up at him. Big and round. He held that gaze as they moved. Because he wanted her to know. What he was, and what he wasn't, about to do.

Nick nudged open her bedroom door with his foot. It creaked open. To reveal her bedroom. The room was dark. No lamps were on. Nick crossed the threshold, carrying Jess against his chest.

The moonlight from her window was pooling like silver onto her white sheets when Nick laid Jess upon them. She still wore the dress from the bar. Black lace. It fanned across the bed like she was a dark fairy princess.

He put his hands in her hair. Into the soft darkness.

He felt her tilt her head towards his hand.

His thumb touched her cheek. And the moment of contact. Of sizzling spark. Between his skin and her skin. Nick was overwhelmed. By the return of the sudden wanting, the deep crave, to crawl on top of her and do amazing things.

Nick stood up.

Jess looked at him, dazedly, from the bed. He smiled.

They said nothing to each other.

And Nick closed the door very gently behind him.

* * *

It was the biggest regret of his whole life.

Nick sat on the brown leather couch in the living room, his body totally rigid. Trying to rid himself of the pictures. The images. The fantasies that a week's worth of waiting had conjured in his twisted vitiated mind. Would he ever get used to this massive uneasiness?

That was how long it had been now, his brain calculated. One week. Seven days. It had been seven days since the night that Jess had propositioned him at the bar. And the worst part was not that he hadn't woken her and seized her that night. Sometimes, when Nick laid in his bed and the air was cold and he was feeling remorseful, he would wish that he had kissed her until she was as inflamed as he was. But in his waking hours, Nick knew he made the right call. It was the good guy call.

The worst part of the last seven days had not been that the window had closed. Because it had not. At all. The worst part was that the window was open. The window was wide open. But that neither of them could bear the awkwardness of being the one to suggest climbing through it.

* * *

Seven days. They had passed painfully, slowly, mechanically. They had passed in a way that felt like fossilization only to people whose every nerve was on fire all the time, everyday.

Jess was painfully aware of Nick's presence. She avoided eye contact. Laughed awkwardly. It was all she could do. Because when he entered the room, she felt her body bristle. Her spine curl, inwards. She was hyper-aware of his presence in her three-dimensional line of vision.

Jess had woken up the night after the bar, laying atop her bed, still wearing her dress, and dimly recalling the faint and flickering memory of Nick having carried her to her room. Which made her smile. In a deep sated way.

Jess was naked and standing beneath the altruistic assault of the shower nozzle when she heard the bathroom door open that morning. Jess knew immediately that it was him. When you live with someone for long enough, you know how their footsteps sound. She knew it was Nick from the way he pushed the door open – not swung it like Schmidt, or bowled it over like Winston. His swift clacking steps into the bathroom. His whole body was like an informercial jingle.

She knew the moment he realized that it was her in the shower. It happened immediately. From the way his footsteps abruptly halted. Although he could not have walked far enough to have reached a urinal or the sink. He had stopped dead in his tracks.

Because he was thinking. What she was thinking.

Which was that they were alone in the bathroom. She was naked in the shower. And Nick was standing three feet away. The possibilities were endless. The invitation was open. It offered opportunity, and opportunity was now.

Jess was frozen in the shower. She didn't move a limb, or muscle. Let the water roll off her back and her breasts, and clatter to the base of the tub. She thought she could hear him breathing, vaguely, but that was probably the interactivity of her imagination flaring into overdrive.

Nick turned around and walked out of the bathroom.

* * *

It had been unbearable ever since.

Jess emerged from the bathroom wearing her soft pink robe, which Nick had always privately and shamefully thought that she looked kind of cute in. Except not anymore. Now that robe was serious business. Her hair was wet and hanging from the contours of her face. And the thing about Jess when she showers is that she smells _amazing _afterwards. And usually, before that day – in all the time and space before the night at the bar – Nick would get extra close to Jess after he showered. Because she smelled like a tropical paradise, and because she's Jess and she's in a good mood after she bathes. She wants to make tea and do fake animal voices and that's kind of nice to be around.

But Nick could not stand the way she smells now. Because she smells like this amazing dream that he can't actualize. He smells her shampoo, her coconut conditioner, and just wants to throw her against a wall and press himself against her and smell her until she's all smelled up.

He can't be around her without thinking about it. That's it.

Jess walks into a room, sees him. Freezes. Deer-in-headlights saucer-shaped alert-the-police eyes that are staring straight at him, and he looks at her, and sees a million partially-constructed images of the two of them in compromising positions. And in his head, they are loving it.

So Nick says nothing.

And Jess says nothing.

And he looks away, and she looks away. And someone leaves the room, and the other heaves a sigh of relief whose breath is not wholly released from the core of the body because each of them is so wrapped up in each other's captive tension that they just cannot be around each other or something might boil over and they just can't be the person to do it. Because it is all so unfathomably horribly awkward.

There were limits to how far Nick could be pushed. Every day, for one week, he had been made constantly aware of his ambit of patience when it came to her. Everyday he discovered a new button she unconsciously pushed. A new way in which he would regain private self-control. His brain tried to compromise with his body. Until she said she still wanted him, until she clarified, until he figured out if sex would be the missile that nuked the friendship, Jess had to remain three feet on the ground. Middle school dance rules.

He didn't know what to do when she started to consciously tempt him.

**A/N: Trust me. It gets way hotter. **


End file.
